Metamorphosis: Image and Idea

FAIN: FT-13354-77

Leonard Barkan
Northwestern University (Evanston, IL 60208-0001)

A three part study of the history of the image of metamorphosis, one of the ruling subjects in art, literature, and thought from antiquity at least through the Renaissance. Study will: 1. consider the meanings of metamorphosis in Ovid's poem of that name and interpret the poem through that image; 2. analyze the heritage of the metamorphic idea in literature and the visual arts, from late antiquity into the Renaissance; 3. consider Shakespeare, whose imagination seems steeped in the metamorphic tradition.